Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Il Principe in Dub

I found this track over at the Dub techno blog,
and thought it had to be shared. The track Blue feature is created by
the artist Niccolo Machiavelli, a londoner sharing the name of the
italian philosopher made famous by his theatrice Il Principe, in english otherwise known as The prince, which you can read in a translation on Project Gutenberg here.

The track itself starts as an ambient drone, evolving unto a point in which it repeats a recorded quote given 1970 by one Spiro Agnew, former vice president of the US under Richard Nixon.
I've heard this quoted in other electronic music but never did try to pin down its source.

I was surprised to see Agnews name when I did, but his attack on intellectuals as repeated here made more sense as part of certain aspects of US republican ideology. Also, the critique of society moving towards 'an age of the gross' is still being repeated today, listeners should be wise enough to see that it is hardly a new idea to react against parts or modernity as a whole.

Ever since the luddite uprising in England, described and defended among some deep green thinkers still, the back side of modernity has found itself critizised from left to right to front to back. In this aspect, the idea of continous degeneration from a past golden age, is an excellent example of mythic thinking, can be seen touted by thinkers seen as 'traditionalists', like Sufi Muslim René Guneon among others. They themselves repeating and recollecting ideas finding its sources in hindoism, that our age is the last one of four - dubbing it the age of kali yuga.

Despite what you may feel for Agnew, or traditionalist notions, that it is quoted as part of the track Blue Feature gives food for thought, encapsulated in beautiful music. The music lending itself to a meditation on the quote, which can also be read in its entirely via Berkley's Social Activism Sound Recording Project.

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Now I listen to

Lubomyr Melnyk - Corollaries (2013)

The ukrainian pianist's collaboration with Nils Frahm and other avant-garde neo-classical pianists has been good for all parties. The short album Corollaries takes the seminal exploration of new sounds in his inmimicable style back to a more simple idea, of writing a set of songs that are as simple as they are beautiful. Absolutely essential!